So, President Obama, who pledged a quick withdrawal from Iraq when many thought we were facing defeat there and crucial Democratic primary voters were demanding withdrawal yesterday, has decided on a slower, measured drawdown that will leave up to 50,000 American troops behind. They could remain until the end of 2011, the date on which the Bush administration agreed with the Iraqi government to complete the departure of American forces.
The irony is that the success of the surge, which Obama predicted would fail, has put his plan well within the range of responsible policy. It is disappointing that the President is still yet to acknowledge this fully, when plainly it is that very political progress that has enabled this announcement. The reality, rhetoric aside, is that Obama's timetable doesn't look very different from what would have been a logical extension of George W Bush's departing view.
As important as the dates and numbers is the president's readiness to allow on-the-ground conditions, as reported by on-the-ground military commanders, to determine the pace of the withdrawals over the next 18 months. Petraeus, not Pelosi, will be the voice that matters. That's good news for the majority of Americans who are not clamouring for – indeed, would be wary of – a hasty withdrawal designed to carry out an election pledge made under vastly different circumstances.
An accelerated, more rigid time table, or one that was indifferent to conditions in Iraq, would doubtless have pleased many of Obama's primary election voters, who luxuriated in a bidding war with Hillary Clinton over who could leave Iraq faster and more completely. But that would run a risk the president, wisely, is not willing to take: the success of the surge in reducing Iraqi and coalition casualties is fragile – as he acknowledged in his speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, "Iraq is not yet secure, and there will be difficult days ahead." A precipitous withdrawal of the sort many Obama supporters expected, if followed by a reversion to the blood-letting that preceded the surge, could do immense political damage to the president, undermining confidence in his management of American national security.
The president has announced the dispatch to Afghanistan of additional American troops and he will doubtless be knocking on doors in Europe, looking for help there from our allies. But while the plans for leaving Iraq reflect a strategy for a responsible withdrawal, the decision to send more soldiers to Afghanistan has all the markings of a surge lookalike without a strategic foundation.
President Bush's surge in Iraq reflected the judgment that a new strategy, aimed at achieving a level of security that would pave the way for political developments there, would also pave the road for a responsible departure. We know what Obama thinks about leaving Iraq. But we do not know what strategy he has in mind for the troops on their way to Afghanistan. He talks of the need for "clearly defined goals" but, while committing more troops to theatre, promises only a "review of our policy in Afghanistan". But he needs to tell us what the plan is – before they get there.
Addressing members of the Marine Corps, President Obama said:
"We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein's regime – and you got the job done. We kept our troops in Iraq to help establish a sovereign government – and you got the job done."
But more than this, he should say what now needs to be said: that we look forward to leaving Iraq when we can honestly say it is well on the path to becoming the Arab world's most important functioning democracy. And it wouldn't hurt to say that, while the cost has been horrendous, the end of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror was the liberation for which millions of Iraqis hoped, and many thousands died.
